Recent advances in technology and the loosening of federal regulations have blurred the once-distinct lines between cable television (CATV) and telephony service. Currently, there is a great demand for a distribution infrastructure that will support the demanding throughput requirements of an integrated CATV and telephony network. The explosion of the Internet and the growing desire for individuals to enjoy interactive television are creating communication throughput demands that the existing copper-cable infrastructure simply cannot satisfy.
Fiber optics as a transmission medium promises a significant increase in information throughput to meet the needs of the telecommunications industries. Existing "fiber deep" distribution systems typically provide optical fiber to the serving area, with coaxial cable or twisted pair copper lines from the serving area to the subscriber's home. The information-transmitting capacity of fiber optics is 10 to 100 times higher than that of conventional copper-conductor communications cable. Consequently, there is a strong desire in both the CATV and the telephony industries to push optical fiber as deeply as possible into subscriber communities and neighborhoods.
Unfortunately, the cost of using fiber optics is typically much greater than copper-conductor cable. The high manufacturing, installation, and maintenance costs of fiber cable have created an economic barrier to providing fiber cable to a subscriber's home. For instance, with existing fiber cable, splice cases are located at discrete locations, called "splice points," along the length of the fiber cable. A drop fiber must be pulled from a splice case and spliced to a main fiber with an optical splitter. The drop fiber cannot be pulled from the cable at any other point along the length of the fiber cable. Currently, the drop fiber must typically be spliced to the main fiber in the field by a field technician. The field technician is likely to encounter environmental hazards, such as weather or debris, which can result in poor-quality splices. Moreover, preparing the main fiber to be spliced, and actually performing the splice, are very time-consuming and difficult tasks to perform in the field.
Field splicing the fiber cable is a difficult task which increases the cost of installing the fiber cable. Also, having a large number of drop fibers emanate from a single location on the fiber cable makes maintaining the fiber drops difficult for a field technician. There is a strong desire to decrease the costs of using fiber cable to make a Fiber-To-The-Home (Fri) distribution system realizable. A cost-effective fiber optic cable to enable FTTH service has eluded those skilled in the art. Therefore, a need exists for a remote-splitter fiber optic cable that alleviates the problems identified above.